Survival of the Greediest

Though Mark Twain may or may not have written the Great American Novel (“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”), he is the Great American Writer-Personality-Folk Figure with enough tang to have a book of his occasionally banned or burned. In spite of the bonfires in the years since his death in 1910, he has been elevated to a place of his own on the virtual Mt. Rushmore. Revered by millions who read him and, apparently, also by millions who haven’t, Twain is a part of the American landscape where the red, white and blue is richly displayed and young people chant, “USA! USA!”

Hence the danger to his posthumous reputation is that he might be dropped into the cultural Cuisinart and turned into an ingredient in the consensus, the American national pudding. But faithful readers of Twain know that he is an unhomogenizable ingredient in any confection cooked up to set minds at ease and allay suspicion that things may not be as they ought. Doubt about Twain’s enduring indigestibility will be erased by the Library of America’s new edition of “The Gilded Age and Later Novels,” which contains Twain’s first novel, written with his friend Charles Dudley Warner (1829-1900). Collaborations of this sort were not uncommon, and though there’s dispute over how this novel came about--did Twain propose or agree to the project?--Twain appreciated Warner’s humor and prose, though succeeding editions have often underplayed his contributions. (Hamlin L. Hill, who edited The Library of America volume, has helpfully included notes on who wrote what.)

At bottom, Twain was God’s angry man. “The Gilded Age” has been borrowed, applied and reapplied whenever America gives way to another spell of gluttony and the sounds emerging from the nation’s capital are of mastication, eructation and the expulsion of wind from the lower parts, as each new generation of bribe-givers and bribe-takers succeeds the previous one. We can certainly see our age reflected in the fate of Si Hawkins, his wife and their two adopted children, Clay and Laura, all hoping for fortunes in post-Civil War 1870s America. Their hopes are lifted, then dashed, by the optimistic but unsuccessful visionary Colonel Beriah Sellers, whose speculations never strike gold.

If Twain were alive during this, our most recent gilded age, he would have enrolled in Sen. John McCain’s campaign finance reform effort--as many instances from the novel make clear. When Harry Brierly, an engineer who becomes entangled with Laura, approaches a water company president, he’s given an education in the costs of “persuading” politicians, as the president explains:

“‘A Congressional appropriation costs money. Just reflect, for instance. A majority of the House Committee, say $10,000 apiece-- $40,000; a majority of the Senate Committee, the same each--say $40,000; a little extra to one or two chairmen of one or two such committees, say $10,000 each-- $20,000; and there’s $100,000 of the money gone, to begin with. Then, seven male lobbyists, at $3,000 each--$21,000; one female lobbyist, $10,000; a high moral Congressman or Senator here and there--the high moral ones cost more, because they give tone to a measure--say ten of these at $3,000 each, is $30,000; then a lot of small-fry country members who won’t vote for anything whatever without pay--say twenty at $500 apiece, is $10,000; a lot of dinners to members--say $10,000 altogether; lot of jimcracks for Congressmen’s wives and children--those go a long way--you can’t spend too much money in that line--well, those things cost in a lump, say $10,000--along there somewhere; and then comes your printed documents--your maps, your tinted engravings, your pamphlets, your illuminated show cards, your advertisements in a hundred and fifty papers at ever so much a line--because you’ve got to keep the papers all right or you are gone up, you know. Oh, my dear sir ... the total in clean numbers foots up $118,254.42 thus far!’”

The bill in question is for money to buy the land to build the Knobs Industrial University where former slaves, the grafters tell the public, will be educated for their new life in freedom. Much of the book’s sardonic plot revolves around this scheme and, if reading “The Gilded Age” reminds you of certain modern benevolent appropriations on behalf of the diversely downtrodden which turned out to be a form of racketeering, you are as much of a cynic or an infuriated idealist as Twain himself.

Twain knew the entertainment value of thieving hypocrisy and bold-faced varletry. He rollicked in civic villainy, as in this passage in which Laura propositions Congressman Trollop to vote for the spurious university:

“‘Now there is no use in you and I dealing in pretenses and going at matters in roundabout ways,’” she tells him. “‘We know each other--disguises are nonsense. Let us be plain. I will make it an object to you to work for the bill.’

“‘Don’t make it unnecessarily plain, please. There are little proprieties that are best preserved. What do you propose?’

“‘Well, this.’ She mentioned the names of several prominent Congressmen. ‘Now,’ said she, ‘these gentlemen are to vote and work for the bill, simply out of love for the negro--and out of pure generosity I have put in a relative of each as a member of the University incorporation. They will handle a million or so of money, officially, but will receive no salaries. A larger number of statesmen are to vote and work for the bill--also out of love for the negro--gentlemen of but moderate influence, these--and out of pure generosity I am to see that relatives of theirs have positions in the University, with salaries, and good ones, too. You will vote and work for the bill, from mere affection for the negro, and I desire to testify my gratitude becomingly. Make free choice. Have you any friend whom you would like to present with a salaried or unsalaried position in our institution?’

“‘Well, I have a brother-in-law--.’”

As for the chances that congressional malefactors will get what’s coming to them, there is this speech about that odd contradiction in terms called the Senate Ethics Committee: “They appoint a committee to investigate, and that committee hears evidence three weeks, and all the witnesses on one side swear that the accused took money or stock or something for his vote. Then the accused stands up and testifies that he may have done it, but he was receiving and handling a good deal of money at the time and he doesn’t remember this particular circumstance--at least with sufficient distinctness to enable him to grasp it tangibly. So of course the thing is not proven--and that is what they say in the verdict.... It has taken a long time to perfect our system, but it is the most admirable in the world, now.” Please note that, 130 years ago, Americans had already made the practice of self-praise a national characteristic.

Washington intrigue and sex scandals were also a familiar part of the landscape to Twain and Warner’s audience. Laura’s involvement with several unscrupulous senators, and a murder and spectacular courtroom trial that follow should be a pleasant surprise for any good student of American politics in the 1990s.

Reading this volume, which includes another story of Col. Sellers in “The American Claimant,” as well as the further adventures of Tom Sawyer and a dark fantasy called “The Mysterious Stranger,” is like taking a trip around a theme park called Nowland. It is as if Twain were still with us, as in this description of the legal process in “The Gilded Age”: “A jury of inquest was impaneled, and after due deliberation and inquiry they returned the inevitable American verdict which has been so familiar to our ears all the days of our lives--’NOBODY TO BLAME.’” And today, be it the crime of dishonest brokers filching their clients’ retirement money or the failure of the FBI to prevent the Sept. 11 disaster, no one gets thrown in jail or fired, as we are all admonished not to play the “blame game.”

Twain’s gilded age and ours are indistinguishable. Nor is our sense of defeatism in any way modern. After it was suggested he might think of running for Congress, Twain’s hero Harry replies: “The chances are that a man cannot get into Congress now without resorting to arts and means that should render him unfit to go there.... Why, it is telegraphed all over the country and commented on as something wonderful if a congressman votes honestly and unselfishly and refuses to take advantage of his position to steal from the government.”

“The Gilded Age” sets a reader thinking about why it is the crimes of other times seem so blatant and those of our own--though no less obvious--are so hard to see. A romp through the knaveries of Warner and Twain’s “The Gilded Age” in this invaluable collection may assist some readers in finding those of our own times.

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From the Preface to ‘The Gilded Age’

“This book was not written for private circulation among friends; it was not written to cheer and instruct a diseased relative of the authors’; it was not thrown off during intervals of wearing labor to amuse an idle hour. It was not written for any of these reasons, and therefore it is submitted without the usual apologies.”

--Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

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Nicholas von Hoffman is the author of “Capitalist Fools,” “Citizen Cohn” and the libretto for “Nicholas and Alexandra,” to be performed next year by the Los Angeles Opera.